She lies down, stretching out across the trunk of a walnut tree cut during the spring.All that's left of its bark are a few shreds, gradually withering away. With her back resting between two ... [+]
"The Newspaper Tunnel," originally published by Page and Spine, is featured in Short Edition's The Current. Helen O'Neill lives in South East London where she spends her days project managing and her evenings trying to apply the same level of organisation to her writing. She blogs at www.findthewritingwell.com
Originally published in Page and Spine
The house seems incongruous on the immaculate street. There are weeds invading the spaces between the broken tiles that lead up to the flaking front door, and a plastic bag rustles, as it struggles to escape the branches of an adolescent sycamore, insolently residing in the center of the baron lawn. I mutter to myself in annoyance as I catch my new coat on the thorns of an untended rose bush that clings to a faded trellis to the side. I take a deep, composing breath, filling my lungs and slowly releasing, as I raise my gloved finger to press the mildewed doorbell.The woman that finally arrives